Wystwood

86. Gone in the mourning

[Reader warning: This chapter deals with death and grief]

Later that day there was a memorial. Silence pressed steadily against the Stone Circle's labyrinth of passages, untrodden and unknown except to a lone, prowling cat. Those well enough had all gathered in the dining chamber, whose blankets and sleeping rolls had been swept aside. The bundles of dried herbs had been torn from the ceiling, and were now being lit as incense upon a dozen stout candles. Aside from their meagre flames, the room was in darkness.

Ada had watched the preparations for the ceremony. The sage-lights were extinguished, one by one, as a chalk circle was drawn in the centre of the chamber around the candles. The incense smoked until the air was dense and dizzying, some earthy fragrance that had existed since grass had first pushed itself through soil. Bodies moved together in the crowded space, their heat strangely comforting upon the cold stone beneath their bare feet. Ada couldn't make out those around her, their fine-boned faces briefly illuminated when they bent to the candles to light incense of their own.

Inside the circle were tributes to the dead, one for each who had fallen the night before. There were innumerable books stacked together, but between their bindings were also trinkets and tools. Ada spotted a porcelain teacup painted with stars and a plain wooden ring, a furled chart and a soft, woollen scarf. Her eyes stopped on a glass vial set atop a pile of books, a single white lily placed inside. She stepped back into the crowd with a tight throat, Hester's death blooming like a fresh pain within her chest.

A hum, low and soft, began from the far side of the chamber. It travelled through the thick air like a vibration, or like an ocean's tide that sucked at the shores of Ada's mind. A voice rose from the depths, then another, words separating and composing until a song came spilling like the sea from their lungs. A hot panic overcame Ada, distant memories now intimate and overwhelming. Memories she could drown beneath.

But then a hand closed around her own, long fingers finding the spaces where her knuckles came together, and held on tight. Her other hand found someone else in the darkness, who despite their strangeness held on just as closely. The candles lit the silhouettes of fae all around the circle, all holding hands and singing as one. Words formed themselves in Ada's mouth, and though she didn't understand the song, she felt each one like her heart was beating its rhythm.

She thought of Hester. Then of Florentin and of Min. She thought of Raeph above in Wysthaven and the rest of the bandits come together beneath it. She thought of her family; of Marie and Jack, of Lucille, and her parents. And finally, her grandmother and the man whose death she had wished would never come to pass. Though pass he had, into a deep and dark unknown, yet with the warmth and love of those he left behind. A balance between life and death, unimaginable and inescapable. A harmony⁠—or an everlasting song⁠—passed from one pair of lips to the next.

Ada held the hands of the two fae beside her. In that moment, she was a part of their circle, sharing their song and their tears. Ada was adrift in the ocean of grief, but realised that she was not alone. She held the hands of a thousand others, who would keep her afloat no matter how close to drowning she felt. Their grief was her own, just as hers was theirs. Their history as entwined as their voices in the air. Together, they suffered. But, together, they would see a new morning.

When the ceremony was over and the tears had dried, some fae knelt by the chalk whilst others left the chamber. Ada moved slowly, her head still heavy in the hot air. She came to the steps where she had sat earlier and found in her place a little girl with tight, tangled curls.

"Min," Ada breathed, finding their arms around one another before she had even sunk to the stone.

"Are you ok, Ada?" Min sniffed, her fingers locked at the back of Ada's neck.